


The Sapling

by nickirows



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: FrostIron - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickirows/pseuds/nickirows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki mourns the death of Tony Stark in the only way he knows: long-suffering grief, dissatisfying violence, and the careful planting of a remembrance tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sapling

_"What makes you think I would wish to fight against him?"_

_"Why wouldn't you? You wouldn't want this face to get bruised, would you?"_

Pale fingers kneaded the dry earth as the summer sun beat down with an unseasonable heat. Far too warm— but then Tony had always been so too, hadn't he? Those brown eyes had always been lit with an irreppresible fire, his quick tongue leaving a sizzling trail along both pride and flesh. The body contorting and twisting like a flame during the winter nights as the steam of his breath rose like smoke towards the dark ceiling. Tony had always ignited both passion and hatred in those around him. Until the insatiable glow that had flickered in those glittering eyes had been extinguished.

_"I'm not a hero, Tony."_

It was still not deep enough. How long had he spent on his knees in the scorching heat of the sun, scrambling in the soil with nary a spell? How much time had been taken attempting to prove himself? He should not have tried; it was inevitably impossible. No life had ever sprung from his actions. The small tree sitting off to the side would wither and die as quickly just like all else with which he came in contact. Never deep enough; his love was never enduring. Accused of everything from insincerity to outright deception. Never enough.

_"You just don't want to stick your neck out for me. You've always been selfish, Loki. I guess you can add cowardice to the list too."_

That was not to say Tony had ever been much better. Always just as volatile, just as self-absorbed; just as unwilling to commit to commitment. How many times had they fallen out over his indiscretions? The girl at the ice-skating rink? The nurse in the hospital? Pointless arguments over pointless people that led to pointless reconciliations. There would always be another. An endless cycle of quarrels and for what? What had they gotten out of it?

_"It is not cowardice to pick and choose your battles, Stark. It is intelligence. Sometimes I fear you lack it."_

_"No, you just never pick the right ones."_

Could a concept such as love even be measured in terms of loss and gain? A renewed appreciation for the joys of dereliction had been surely garnered. Amusement occasionally from whatever admittedly clever quip Tony was making. Pleasure coupled with surprise at the way his body had writhed in bed, responding with a passion that Loki never believed anyone, let alone a mortal, could inspire. Strong affection unlike any he could recall previously harboring. So powerful that his chest had ached and his body quivered, not from the desire for conquest but for peace. Treaties signed in sweat and broken with promises.

_"Hey, you made it. Better late than never, I suppose, though I think the fun's over."_

Did the benefits make up for the losses? The respect he had worked so hard to earn slowly chipped away as sentimentality had seeped through the cracks. Months wasted lounging away within an insignificant tower in a negligible city. How many realms could he have conquered? How many allies could he have wooed? The universe could have been bowing before his feet, the echoing screams of his subjects disappearing into the vast icy blackness of space, and yet he had spent that valuable time discovering the merits of Black Sabbath over AC/DC (the general consensus concluded that they were incomparable).

_"Do not speak, just hold still as we go to a hos—"_

_"Don't bother."_

The hole in the ground was too smooth along the edges; the one thing that it seemed he could do right, and it was still wrong. This tree could not go in there if it were to thrive. Irregularities brought a trenchancy that without which life would be dull. True emotion came from egregious imperfections, flagrant abnormalities, and pain dripping from jagged edges. Was it worth the anguish? Loki could not recollect experiencing such mighty passion and neither could recall such utterly crippling grief.

_"You should have been there, Ariel. Glorious battle and all that. You would have liked it."_

_"...You never call me that."_

_"I call it as I see it. You look like you're underwater, babe."_

Obscured by salty liquid and fading quickly from sight. Loki blinked away the wetness from his  own eyes as the sapling was carefully lowered into the now meticulously-disheveled opening in the earth, the loose soil soon packed down hard around the base in a manner that seemed far too stable to serve as a memorial for one made notorious by being the very opposite. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead onto lightened dirt, a personal offering to join the spattering of scotch from the flask in his pocket. He had wanted the arc reactor to unify it all; if it could power Tony for so long, then it could bring life to this doomed young tree. However, the captain had expressed a wish to retain it and Loki had not the motivation then to oppose him.

_"I don't want you to leave."_

_"I am not leaving you, Tony. I'm right here."_

He was still here. Everyone had expected him to nip off elsewhere immediately following the battle. Yet here was. Still on Midgard. "I'm right here." Covered up to his elbows in dirt and sweating from every orifice. Tony had once, when last confronted unsuccessfully by death, wanted to return to Malibu. _And I'll be warm. If I'm dying, I should get what I want, right?_ Now he would never have to leave again. The body had been buried in New York, left to bloat and crack and freeze during winter before its yellowed bones were inevitably unearthed by one natural event or another. The soul would be here though. Loki had felt it; could still feel it. The occasional scent of cologne and oil in the air. A wry chuckle on the wind. "I cannot stay, but I'll be back. I swear I shall be back."

Decades passed without return. A thousand fierce battles fought. Tens of realms conquered and lost. Enemies made and betrayed in such rapid succession until there was no one left to stand behind him in battle. New generations of Avengers had been recruited over time until barely any originals remained. The beast fatally shot somewhere in the wet jungles of Africa. Barton and Romanoff vanished somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. The mighty Thor, still youthful, yet with sad blue eyes forcibly wisened; sat upon his aged throne with Queen Sif at his side. Only the captain now remained to oppose him. This battle was bitter; the days had long since passed when Loki could easily gain the upper hand. Breath was quickly lost and old wounds often became enflamed once more. Fought with weapons until both were too fatigued to lift them, they then scrambled for footholds in the dirt, blows exchanged with bloody knuckles upon unsteady feet. Not once did their eyes meet, for both knew what they would see and, even after all this time, they did not wish to view it. The brief alliance they had once held years before was still fresh in both their minds, as well as the unlikely and long-dead man that had brought it about. They did not wish to witness him.

A particularly nasty blow was delivered to the side of his head, and Loki could feel the cold blood that trickled through black hair now graying at the temples. Everything seemed to echo as he fell to his knees with a seemingly ear-shattering thud, green eyes watching scuffed blue boots slowly approach. A nearby spear from the battle still raging around them was lifted and Loki watched as the sun was blocked, as the tip glinted before whistling downward to pierce empty air. Appearing behind the man, Loki dug a blade directly between his shoulders before hitching it up. No words were spoken and none needed to be. It was all whispered in the blood that trickled from the captain's mouth and dripped into the soil. A soft response soon followed in the blood dripping from his own chest as a sharp pain pierced his back, the triumphant yell that followed fading away distant and unimportant. For the most ephemeral of moments, green eyes met blue and the pain that breached thousands of nights stretched between them, enemies held together by that thin thread of timeless grief until it snapped as the captain's eyes rolled upwards into his skull.

"I'm right here." So different now the clearing was and yet unchanged. The wide expanse of open grassland was now covered in small ferns and red aster flowers. In the center of the space was an impossible thing; the tree was not meant to have survived let alone grown so tall. How could it have survived fifty years when Tony could not live forty-five? It was everything that it should not have been.  Uncharacteristically tall and impossibly steady. Everything _they_ could never have been. It did not oppose as Loki stumbled against it before sinking wearily to the ground, a bloody hand curling around the soft dirt still surrounding it. His head tilted back against the bark as his eyes fluttered closed in a feeble attempt to block out the unusually-warm sunlight. There it was. That prideful laugh floating on the breeze, the smell of spice and petrol. Calloused hands caressing the scars adorning the once-unmarred neck. That sinful tongue mouthing its way along his jaw. "I swore I would be back."

_"About time."_


End file.
